


to craft a thing of sky and salt

by cinnaminnt, miintleaf



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Magic, College, First Dates, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Magic, Pining, Rivalry, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-07 18:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17966183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnaminnt/pseuds/cinnaminnt, https://archiveofourown.org/users/miintleaf/pseuds/miintleaf
Summary: Okay, so maybe it turns out that Keith actually likes spending time with Shiro. But he’s really, really busy pretending that’s not the case - they’re rivals, right? - so he can only blame his terrible luck when their professor announces a group lab with their seat partners.“Seems like we’ll be working together today,” Shiro says, collected as always. The assignment has already begun to scrawl itself on the board at the front of the room-- make two potions using the ingredient Lavandula angustifolia. Keith thinks their professor has been binge-watching a bit too much, because it sounds like a challenge straight out of The Great British Brew-Off. Keith will not concede how he came by that knowledge. It’s definitely not the entire reason he signed up for a Hexflix account.





	to craft a thing of sky and salt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DexjioTheDarkOne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DexjioTheDarkOne/gifts).



> A (slightly) belated Sheithlentines gift for [BlackKeiths](https://twitter.com/BlackKeiths)!
> 
> Their original prompt was a Witch AU with Shiro and Keith flirting while making a potion together, and we added in a dash of college AU, since we've been wanting to play around with the dynamic between them if they'd gone to school at the same time (aka a bit of playful rivalry). 
> 
> We hope you enjoy!!

Keith hates group projects.

His poor social skills factor into it, of course-- he's not good with people and he's accepted that he may never be. He also hates having to coordinate schedules and not having full control over whatever work he produces. But more than anything, Keith hates group projects because he has _terrible_ luck with partners. He's always set up with irresponsible students, or people that get on his nerves, and when he gets to pick his partner, it's always in a class where he doesn't know anyone. (Which is more of his classes than he'd like to admit.)

Foolishly, he'd imagined this wouldn't be a problem any more once he got into college. Altea University, with its sprawling campus and immense magical arts program, seemed to promise so much. Maybe Keith would make some actual friends. At the very least, the people in his classes would be minding their own business and working hard.

What he wasn't expecting was Potions 201, and Shiro. Shiro who, within the first fifteen minutes of their first brewing, pointed out a minor ‘mistake’ that Keith made with his ingredients. Just helping a freshman out, he explained with a grin, which of course immediately put him on Keith's list. It’s an inconsequential substitution; something he’d gotten into the habit of because back home, some ingredients just aren’t available. (Desert witches make do.) Keith had made pointed eye contact with Shiro as he added it in, and made sure to enjoy Shiro’s surprise when Keith’s potion turned out just as good as his.

He also wasn’t expecting Shiro’s good natured curiosity about the encounter, and being followed to lunch as Shiro asked him about other magical substitutions and how Keith learned all this and Shiro smiling at him with the intensity of at least five suns when he finally got up and waved goodbye to Keith, bounding off to sit with his own friends for the remainder of lunch.

Keith’s used to being the most adept witch he knows and he, maybe naively, expects that to remain the same. He did get in on a full scholarship after all. As it turns out, Shiro is the one to challenge that. He’s incredibly talented, Keith will begrudgingly admit, and they usually come out as the top two in class, which generally wouldn’t bother Keith-- except. _Except_ , Shiro seems to be relentlessly competitive-- which really only makes it justified for Keith to respond in kind, because he wants to wipe that big dumb grin off of Shiro’s face one way or another. Shiro starts sitting next to him every class, to keep an eye on him no doubt, and if Shiro is too focused in class, Keith might splash or nudge him, just as a distraction. Shiro starts to join Keith in the mess hall whenever he catches him, and they even end up studying together once or twice in the library (definitely not orchestrated by Keith on purpose).

Okay, so maybe it turns out that Keith actually likes spending time with Shiro. But he’s really, really busy pretending that’s not the case - they’re rivals, right? - so he can only blame his terrible luck when their professor announces a group lab with their seat partners.

“Seems like we’ll be working together today,” Shiro says, collected as always. The assignment has already begun to scrawl itself on the board at the front of the room-- _make two potions using the ingredient Lavandula angustifolia._ Keith thinks their professor has been binge-watching a bit too much, because it sounds like a challenge straight out of The Great British Brew-Off. Keith will not concede how he came by that knowledge. It’s definitely not the entire reason he signed up for a Hexflix account.

“Guess so. Do you remember how to work with others, star boy?” Keith asks, and Shiro laughs, bumps his shoulder against Keith’s. Keith’s not used to being touched so casually and it’s… overwhelming, in more ways than one.

“Me? I should be asking you that, as Altea’s resident hotshot loner.”

Keith snorts. Loner? True enough. Hotshot, though? Well… maybe only if it’s Shiro calling him that.

“Nope. No problem here. Except with the time we’re wasting standing around right now.” The rest of their class has started to take out cauldrons and prep ingredients, he notes. Keith earns a good-natured eye-roll for his comment, but Shiro starts to tidy the desk up and sets out his cauldron, Keith following suit.

“So, lavender. We can make a sleeping draught, and…”

“Bug repellant.” Keith huffs when Shiro raises an eyebrow at him. “What? It’s useful. And the professor is going to be looking for creativity and quality of the finished product. It’s better than all the anti-anxiety potions everyone else is going to be brewing, and I know how to make this.”

“Didn’t say you didn’t.” Shiro offers up that small, encouraging grin that makes Keith’s chest feel all fluttery and uncomfortable, and starts gathering together the ingredients for the sleeping potion. Keith turns on the flames for his cauldron and pours some water in to boil, and starts to crush some lavender with his mortar and pestle. He adds some grapefruit peel, thyme, and a few other ingredients before murmuring something soft into the cauldron and lidding it. It needs to simmer for a bit, so Keith leaves it and turns to Shiro. Things seem to be going well with the sleeping draught, too, which means Keith doesn’t feel all that bad when he makes a show of closely inspecting every ingredient Shiro touches, humming and _tsk_ ing when he prepares something or adds it to his cauldron.

Shiro doesn’t react, at least not verbally-- but Keith can see that the way he’s holding his shoulders is a little too straight, almost stiff. Finally Shiro breaks, hiding a laugh in what’s supposed to be an exasperated sigh, and he fixes Keith with a Look. “Okay, what’re you up to?”

“What?” Keith is a picture of perfect innocence. It fools no one.

“It just seems like you’ve got something to say.”

“Nope.” Shiro eyes him before turning back to his potion. There’s a pause before Keith says, “Huh. Bold choice.”

Shiro sets down the dropper bottle he's holding and looks at Keith again, crossing his arms over his chest. “And why's that?”

“No reason.” Shiro starts to go for the dropper again when Keith hums. “...Just an interesting decision, adding the sirensong in like that.” Keith shrugs, nonchalant, trying to stifle the little grin threatening to break across his face.

Shiro sets the bottle down, shoulders straight.

“Okay, then you add it.” Shiro looks both amused and just a little curious when he slides the bottle over to Keith. He's always watching Keith make potions like he's just tuned into a particularly interesting documentary. Keith huffs, picks up the bottle, and leans in. And they're close. Shiro's standing just behind him, near enough that if Keith were to take a particularly deep breath, his back would brush against Shiro's chest. He can feel the warmth from Shiro's body close to him, almost feels his exhales tickle along the back of his neck. Keith's hands are just barely steady when he opens the bottle, holds the dropper over the cauldron, and carefully squeezes three drops in.

Shiro leans in closer, and Keith can definitely feel his breath warm against his ear. “Now, explain to me how that's _any_ different than how I was going to do it?”

“Well, you just had the wrong energy about it. Body language. Magic is all about _intention_ ,” Keith quips, as if it's not something Shiro has heard over and over since grade school.

“You little punk,” Shiro growls, leaning in to ruffle Keith's hair and wrap him in a headlock, receiving a squawk in protest. They earn a sharp _no roughhousing during a lab_ from their professor, which has them both appropriately cowed. For the time being.

They make it about twenty minutes, stirring and simmering and tweaking the potions, before their nonsense timer resets. Keith has just dissolved the bee pollen in his potion, and nods his head towards the supplies on Shiro's side of the table.

“Cheesecloth?”

“What?” Shiro looks at him as if he's grown another head (which sent someone to the hospital in his transfiguration class last month).

“Pass the cheesecloth, I’m gonna strain this.”

Shiro blinks at him, perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised. “I have a strainer.”

“They’re not fine enough. Do you want to drink a silty potion?” Keith huffs, and extends a hand out.

“Fair enough.” Shiro chuckles and puts a small, folded-up cheesecloth into Keith’s outstretched palm, and their fingers brush gently as he draws back. Keith’s fingertips feel warm for minutes afterwards, so he doesn’t catch the blush settling at the tips of Shiro’s ears. He sets up a large mason jar with the cheesecloth elastic-banded to the top, and carefully, slowly pours the potion in in a steady stream.

“Hey. So, I’ve been thinking.”

“Yeah?” Keith keeps pouring.

“We’ve been sitting next to each other for a while now…”

“I noticed.” The flow starts to ebb and Keith tilts the cauldron further from himself to get it going again.

“And I think we get along pretty well.”

Keith’s brows furrow up. “Yeah, I guess.”

“And I was just wondering if, no pressure of course, maybe you’d want to get dinner sometime?” Shiro says it all in a rush, like if he slows down at all he won’t get it out.

Keith drops the cauldron. The rest of the liquid in it sloshes all over Keith and all over the floor, and they both stare at it in a stupor before their gaze shifts to each other.

“Shit. Oh geez, I--” Shiro picks up a cheesecloth and starts to frantically dab at Keith, as if it’ll help. It doesn’t. The rest of the class has started to gawk or snicker, and their professor is looking on nervously, maybe anticipating a call to the infirmary. Keith seems to have completely forgotten how to operate his own body and is standing there, frozen. “Keith, I'm so sorry--”

“Yes,” Keith blurts, and Shiro stops patting him ineffectively, staring in confusion. Keith clears his throat and tries again, “Yeah. Dinner sometime. Would be nice.”

“Oh.” Shiro turns pink, and then a grin spreads across his face in slow realization. “Great.”

Keith fishes out his wand, and with a flick of it and a murmured incantation, the potion is off of the floor and his clothes and back into the cauldron. What touched the ground is spoiled now, but he poured out enough of it beforehand for their professor to grade. Although he's guessing from the sour look he's getting right now that he'll be scolded on his gratuitous use of magic. Shiro is still standing there, looking entirely enamored with Keith and like he couldn’t care less what grade he gets on this assignment or maybe even in the class. Keith tries not to let it fluster him further.

“Before that, though, we should try to pass this class, yeah?” Keith says with a nod towards Shiro's cauldron, and he snickers as Shiro starts out of his reverie, fumbling to tend to the sleeping draught and get it bottled up before class ends.

Of course, Keith makes sure to give him more important wisdom on straining potions and not causing them to be dumped all over one’s lab partner. Shiro manages a smart ass quip about how they should find somewhere with outdoor seating for dinner, since Keith will repel any bugs within a three-mile radius. And if their hands brush once or twice in the tidying up process… Well, it can’t be helped.

 _Dinner sometime_ turns into dinner that very night. Mostly because Shiro feels bad about making Keith a walking citronella candle, and Keith feels like Shiro should have to suffer the consequences of his actions. They do end up sitting outside-- not because of Keith's bug-warding status, but because the sky is remarkably clear and full of stars. It’s not all that different from them eating lunch together, chatting the entire time and playfully teasing each other, but for some reason, the setting makes it… really romantic. And maybe Keith is having the realization that their interactions were never quite as platonic as he’d convinced himself.

Shiro walks him back to his dorm after, because that’s how Shiro is. Campus is quiet, for the time being, so they take the long way back. Keith is also quiet, keeps touching at the back of his hair nervously, and Shiro bumps their hips together and says, “What’s up?” He seems to be able to just tell between Keith being quiet and Keith having something on his mind.

“I-- want to hold hands,” Keith declares, haltingly. Shiro stumbles over his own feet.

“Oh. You. Oh.” Shiro is surprised, and Keith feels just as surprised himself. But he doubles down, looks up at Shiro with bright, determined eyes and Shiro grins, big and goofy, and bumps their hands together. Lightly touches at his fingers. Then, finally, grasps his hand and squeezes it lightly.

Neither of them take a step forward.

“Is this… okay?”

“Yes-- yeah. Very. Okay.” Shiro is blushing a little, despite his attempts to look cool and collected. It’s really cute.

They’re both grown adults, but Keith sort of feels like a giddy teen again, excited about walking home holding hands. They spend a long time standing on the steps of Keith’s building, trying to figure out how to part ways.

When Keith finally makes it back into his room and sinks into bed, heart still fluttering in his chest, he brushes his fingertips over his lips and hopes they didn’t taste of lavender.

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up being finished on Shiro's birthday so... Happy Birthday to the Best Boy!!! 
> 
> Come talk to us about the birthday boy or just yell about sheith with us in general here: 
> 
> on twitter:  
> [cinnaminnt](https://twitter.com/cinnaminnt)  
> [miinty](https://twitter.com/miintleaves)
> 
> on tumblr:  
> [cinnaminnt](https://cinnaminnt.tumblr.com)


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